On Tuesday, Jan. 15, Furman welcomed Kent State University School of Art professor Taryn McMahon with the opening of her exhibition, Vanishing Points, in Thompson Gallery. Sponsored by the Furman Department of Art, the exhibition is free and open to the public. The exhibition will conclude on Thursday, Feb. 15 with a closing reception and talk given by McMahon from 6-7:30 p.m.
Vanishing Points features eight large print banners, which McMahon created specifically for display in Thompson Gallery. These banners are hung centrally, and are surrounded by twelve of her paper works.
McMahon’s exhibition highlights the complicated cultural construction of the idea of nature. In a statement, she expresses her goal of using art to better understand humanity’s relationship to and place within the natural world.
She accomplishes this by blending digital photographs and drawings from her visits to ecological sites, heavily focusing on neutral, botanical garden images. “Like a DJ spinning sounds culled from disparate sources,” she says in a statement, “the forms are remixed through the filters of printmaking, drawing, digital photography and collage.”
Through her artwork, McMahon says that she imagines a world of ecological change. “I imagine a future ecology in which technology and reality are collapsed into each other,” she continues, “and the natural and the manmade have become intertwined and indistinguishable.”
McMahon obtained her BFA from The Pennsylvania State University and an MA and MFA from the University of Iowa. Her work has earned her numerous awards such as the Southern Graphics Council International Graduate Fellowship, and has granted her residencies at Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass Village, Colo.; Anchor Graphics, Chicago; and Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, N.Y.
Her work has been featured in exhibitions at The Print Center, Philadelphia; and Carroll Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans. McMahon teaches Print Media as an assistant professor of art at Kent State University where she also serves as the area head of Print Media and Photography.
Thompson Gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information and to learn more about McMahon, visit her website at www.tarynmcmahon.com.
